Master Touch, The

Good Euro-Crime Thriller
This is a Good example of the Euro-Crime Thriller.Kirk Douglas plays Steve Wallace, a middle-aged ex-con trying for one last big score befores he retires.Florinda Bolkan plays his beautiful trusting wife who has waited for his return for years, but her patience is wearing thin even though her love and loyalty to her husband is unbreakable.
Italian Star, Giuliano Gemma plays the young protege who helps Wallace out in this slow paced and well told story that has the usuall downbeat offerings of many Euro-Crime thrillers along with the exciting action sequences.Indeed at times the film reminds me of Michael Mann's,"HEAT".
Especially the character played by Robert DeNiro(Neal McCauley) who is reminiscent of the Steve Wallace character in Michele Lupo's,"The Master Touch" - aka: A Man To Respect.
Cinematography is by the late, Tonino Delli Colli who worked with many of the great Italian Directors including Sergio Leone.
All in all this was a worthwhile purchase and...

Plenty of action and tension
Released from prison, Steve (Kirk Douglas) is tempted to perform one last seemingly impossible heist. Eschewing the offer from notorious gangsters, he pairs up with an agile trapeze artist met in a street fight and plans a concurrent FOOLPROOF alibi and perfect crime. Unfortunately, fools are involved which leads to three brutal fights, one exhaustive car chase, and more than one vendetta to be settled -- leaving Steve to wonder if the effort was equal to the potential payoff. Be careful about making friends with acquaintances met in an alley.

Caveats: Image of this made-for-TV production is VHS quality on the DVD. There may be too much violence for some families.

I was there at the making of the film
My name is Carlos Rosaire, I am a Circus Artist and at the time of making this film I was performing in the Circus Orfei in Rome where the Circus shots were filmed, one of my family actually appeared in the film, after the film was completed, I saw the version in Italian and I very disappointed in the version that Amazon sent to me as it had been cut quite a lot and most of the scenes that I was looking forward to were missing, apart from this it was still a very good film, it was with great joy that I saw my old friend Giuliano Gema again, I have not seen him since the film was made. I hope this has been of some help to people who will have seen the film or will be doing so in the near future. Yours Carlos Rosaire Spain 28/09/2012

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